Taking the sugary fakeness of pop stardom to a new level, Japan’s new holographic pop star Hatsune Miku is a dancing and singing 3D projection with a voice made from a synthesizer.
Via Flavorwire
Graduate students at MIT have created a 3D, gesture-based computing interface using an inexpensive, multicolored glove:
Other prototypes of low-cost gestural interfaces have used reflective or colored tape attached to the fingertips, but “that’s 2-D information,” says Robert Wang, a graduate student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory who developed the new system together with Jovan Popović, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science. “You’re only getting the fingertips; you don’t even know which fingertip [the tape] is corresponding to.” Wang and Popović’s system, by contrast, can translate gestures made with a gloved hand into the corresponding gestures of a 3-D model of the hand on screen, with almost no lag time. “This actually gets the 3-D configuration of your hand and your fingers,” Wang says. “We get how your fingers are flexing.”
(via MIT News)
Wang demos the glove in the following video:
The creators envision a wide of uses for the glove:
The most obvious application of the technology, Wang says, would be in video games: Gamers navigating a virtual world could pick up and wield objects simply by using hand gestures. But Wang also imagines that engineers and designers could use the system to more easily and intuitively manipulate 3-D models of commercial products or large civic structures.
(via MIT News)
It’s fascinating to think about the potential for these more intuitive computing interfaces to open a field like product or building design to a larger audience.
Designer Maxim Barkhatov recently posted a video for his concept glasses known as ARPA (Augmented Reality Project Assistant):
ARPA is a concept product & interface that fuses together the IKEA model of furniture assembly & the do-it-yourself mentality inspired by the Home Depot. It allows the user to digitally interact with their real-world environments while planning their projects with the patented augmented reality technology.
(via Barkhatov)
Barkhatov joins a series of others active in the AR furniture game.
Not the first thing I’d do with AR goggles, but pretty awesome nonetheless.
Recently Acquired by Google, Anand Agarawala presents BumpTop, a user interface that takes the usual desktop metaphor to a glorious, 3-D extreme, transforming file navigation into a freewheeling playground of crumpled documents and clipping-covered “walls.”
Since its introduction on TED Talks, BumpTop has evolved and now features a unique touch interface.
It will be interesting to see how Google integrates this technology into their offerings (part of Android OS? a competitor for the iPad?).
Nice video from Sehsucht, especially the countdown in the beginning.
Some of our neighbors up North have come up with a motion parallax oriented 3D display device. This handheld box consisting of 5 LCD (OLED in the future) screens taps into your brain’s hardwired circuits to provide a “fish-tank-like experience” for the user.
Unlike stereoscopic 3D which presents two slightly different images on a single flat surface to create a 3D effect in front of a user, motion parallax uses motion and changing position. No glasses needed. Your head is tracked by the device which also has a physics engine, then presents you with a series of images that have both have depth and can be interacted with in space.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/3-d-tabletop-display-gets-rid-of-the-glasses/
levelHead is a augmented reality game challenging one’s spatial memory. The goal is to rotate the cubes in order to move the character through doors trying to find the exit.
It’s a good example of the possibilities of simple augmented reality gaming.
The game is not yet available for personal use, but is available for installation use.
There’s been a lot of talk about Html5 vs Flash lately, and you can read some points of view here, here and here. It’s something that should be discussed and explored in detail as ultimately, it’s about using what works best for what purpose. Most of what we do is Flash, so here are some things to check out that can be done with Html5.
Html 5 canvas – Thome Yorke’s head in 3D
Motion Portait Park out of Japan specialize in 3D face morphing technology and have released an iPhone app that lets you age a picture of yourself to see what you would look like in the future. You can buy it for 0.99 at the appstore here.
Nice exploration of Flash’s 3D capabilities from UNITZEROONE here and here.
